Problem: Even the most powerful PC's become non responsive during resource-intensive computations, such as graphic design, media, image rendering and manipulating. The traditional solution has been to upgrade to a faster computer and throw more computing power at the problem to lessen the wait-time. But there's a simple solution that utilizes multiple machines, but without using grid/clustering. For now, this involves a hack, but how hard would it be for an OS vendor to streamline this process?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this what Apple is trying to achieve with xGrid? Easily configurable distributed computing for persons without the administrative skills or technical know-how seems tailor-made for the situation the author describes. Can someone who knows more about this give me some more information? It seems to me that xGrid in conjunction with Automator could be a powerful combination, and I'm intrigued by the upcoming OS X Tiger.